Ragnarok nears
by BVR2109
Summary: Continuation of "The Distant Valhalla". According to the girl there's nothing between 2011 and 2025 but pure white. It's up to Okabe to fill in the blanks by fighting fate and SERN to get her back.


**[Ragnarok]**

 _Climactic series of events in Norse mythology that include a great battle of the Gods. The battle ends with the death of a lot of those Gods and the reshaping of Earth. 'Ragnarok' means Fate of the Gods and it is primarily featured in the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse poems._

 **[03, MAY, 2015 12:30PM]  
** _Divergence 0.334581%._

When I open my eyes, the girl is sitting next to me. I feel her hand glide over my cheek, as she looks down on my prone form, her red hair tickling my face. I open my mouth to speak her name. The name that has become so unfamiliar to me, but one that I would never forget. Instead, she puts her finger to my lips and I'm frozen in place. Her warmth, pulsating through her fingertips and coursing into my body.

When she leans close, I can smell her. A smell I had committed to memory when we were trapped in darkness, relying only on each other in the long winding road of the Large Hadron Collider. When she walked away from me, to become the Mother of Time Machines. When she turned back and said she would wait for me to come and get her...

"Okabe," she whispers and I'm convinced she's there. I can feel her breath puffing against my skin. "It's time to wake up."

When I open my eyes again, I'm lying on the couch. Daru is standing over me, gently shaking me awake. We're still in the lab in Akihabara. My lab coat is draped over me, and on the floor there's an open can of Dr. Pepper. The TV is on, though there's just static. I can't remember what I was watching before I passed out.

Outside the sun is at its apex, and beaming down on our building. It bathes the room in a harsh, bright light. I'm surprised I managed to fall asleep with all the light streaming into the room. Still, it's crucial that I get enough sleep. After all, we're implementing our final operation today. Operation Ragnarok.

"Are you awake?" Daru asks.

I nod. "Yeah," I say and I swing my legs from the couch. When I sit up, Daru plops down next to me. He doesn't want to look at me, and I can understand why. He's afraid that I will see he's scared to death.

Honestly, I myself am scared to death. Though there is something to be said for being immortal. For the time being, that is.

I pat him on the back. "We'll be fine," I say and I try to sound as cheerful as possible. It has always been my job to get the Lab Members on track. Daru was and always had been the brains of our lab. "We can't die, remember?"

He looks up and the sadness on his face still manages to overwhelm me. "We may not be able to die, but they can." He turns his gaze to the door, where a group of volunteers is waiting for us, their leaders, to tell them what to do.

The internet is such a strange and wonderful place. For four years, we've been making plans for our final operation. The operation that would fulfill my promise to the girl. The promise that would see her return to Akihabara.

Early on we realized that there was no way just the two of us could take on SERN. We needed to play our parts in the will of the universe. We had to create the resistance that would fight SERN. The creation of this group was something we had started calling Operation Valkyrie.

Daru and I had started scouring the Internet to try and round up a group of people who would be willing to fight for the cause. It had been a long and hard task. A large part of our struggles had to do with the fact that no one believed us when we claimed that a European research group would end up creating a time machine and ruling the world. The other issue was that we were based in Japan, not exactly the most reachable of countries when our enemy was located in Switzerland.

Still, eventually we managed to collect a group of twenty volunteers who were ready to fight with us. We explained to them what had happened and what would happen according to Suzuha. This group of people, mostly from Japan, was willing to do anything in their power to stop SERN. It had baffled me that there were people out there who so readily accepted what we told them as absolute truth, but it shouldn't have surprised me. After all, despite the fact that free will was supposedly a thing, we were all dancing to the tune of the universe, bending to its will.

Daru and I had to accept that I would die in 2025, and he would be killed while working on an unfinished time machine. That gave me a little over 10 years left on this Earth, and I had promised myself that I would spend those last years with my friends... and the girl. Somewhere over the course of the weeks I spend with her, I had grown fond of her. She understood me, understood the pain of losing Mayuri, understood how unbearable it was for me to see her body lying on the wooden floor of the lab, as blood seeped out of the hole in her forehead.

Every time I leaped back I found new things to appreciate about her. She kept me on my toes, forced me to always think and to never stop doing so. She challenged me in ways that I had never been. When I finally snapped and gave up, when I realized I could not beat the world and let the Rounders take us, she understood me too.

It wasn't until I had her in my arms after not seeing each other for over one and a half years, that I realized that she meant much more to me than I thought. She was my assistant, my partner, my friend. I had grown so fond of her that I honestly couldn't imagine my life without her in it. Which is why I made those promises to her.

"I know," I say. I motion the group of volunteers to enter our lab and grab the coat that is still lying on my legs. I stand up and put it on, before combing my fingers through my hair, trying to tame its wild shape. I know my face is scruffy; long hours in the lab spent plotting means that there is less time for personal hygiene.

The lab is a mess, but everyone manages to find a place to sit anyway. I pace in front of the group, looking them all in the eye. Their expressions differ from general anxiety to relatively calm. There's even a young boy there, I guess him to be around 16 years. He seems positively excited for the trip we're about to embark on.

A pang of guilt shoots through me, as I realize that I don't care whether his parents know what type of journey he's about to embark on. All I feel is happiness that he wishes to risk his life for her, even though he doesn't really understand what our fight is for.

I clear my throat and stop pacing. The atmosphere in the room seems to reach a boiling point. I figure I should say something. "Valkyrians!" I say and immediately realize that the name is really cheesy, but I go with it anyway. "From today onward we will be fighting a secret war against an enemy that is shrouded in darkness. It will be up to us all to fight these people, to make sure that our world remains free. Free for us, free for our children and free for our children's children. Today begins our final operation: Ragnarok."

I put my hands into the pockets of my lab coat and wait for the boisterous applause. It never comes. Instead I faintly hear the cicadas outside the window. Inside the lab, people are looking at me kind of strange. Daru shakes his head and stands next to me. "We will be traveling to Switzerland in group. Everyone should have their tickets already. Weapons will be provided when we have arrived. Assume that our enemy knows where we are at all times. They will be on high alert."

Nods and a chorus of "Yes sir" ring through the laboratory. I can't believe Daru has changed this much. Not four years ago we clung to each other, a mad scientist and a super haka, crying our hearts out as we realized the massive undertaking we were about to take on. Now there's a look of determination on his face. He realizes that we will probably end up killing a lot of people. He also knows that we have to, whether we want to or not. It's the choice of Steins;Gate. It frightens me that he seems so ready, despite hearing him confess to being so scared mere minutes ago. Not for himself, but for the group of people that he helped bring together.

The volunteers stand up, shoot off a salute, and trickle out of the room, leaving us alone in the lab. Two suitcases stand by the door, filled with the essentials. Toiletries, a few sets of clothes, fake passports, everything we need to slip into Switzerland undetected, save her, and get out.

Though we're sure that SERN knows we're coming back. Hiiragi Akiko, the woman who I thought to be Knight-Hart, implied as much. She understands that the promise I made to the girl is sacred.

It doesn't matter. Daru and I are ready to fulfill our destiny, to play our parts in the story that the world has already written. It gives a sense of freedom, knowing that whatever it is you're going to do, has already been decided up to a certain point. I know I will die in 2025, but like the girl said, Suzuha only saw fragments. An incomplete puzzle, with pieces that we ourselves can still craft. Our future isn't a completely blank canvas, but we have the artistic freedom to fill in the blanks as we see fit.

I clap Daru on the back. "It's time to go."

"Yeah," he says and walks towards the door. I follow him, but hesitate at the door. My fingers lock around the handle of my suitcase, but lifting it up and walking out is harder than I imagined. "You ready?" he asks.

I roll the suitcase through the door and turn around, my eyes taking the lab in for the last time in who knows how long. I know we're coming back, but it still feels like I'm closing a huge chapter of my life. My innocence is gone. I can no longer claim to simply be a student, caught up in something that's way too big for him to handle.

I have to take responsibility. Together with Daru, I am charged with creating the resistance that will fight SERN to the bitter end. I am charged with becoming a leader for this group, and I am charged with dying in 2025.

I take a deep breath as my mind replays once again that fatal night, where a group of Rounders burst into the lab and shot Mayuri. Her death is weighing heavily on me still. There are nights where I still hear her call me Okarin, despite the fact that she has been gone for five years.

What we're about to do won't exactly be revenge. I see it more as taking back something that's ours. Taking back the girl, held in captivity as she's forced to work on the theory of time machines, something that she will end up completing after I'm dead and buried.

I realize that our mission ultimately is pointless. Whether we successfully take her back with us or not, the end result will be the same. She will finish her work for SERN. That doesn't mean that I don't have to try. Ten more years. The realization sometimes keeps me up at night. There are no infinite possibilities. My life is finite and I know when the clock will stop ticking, when the sand in the hourglass will stop falling. All there is left for me to do is live my life the way I want it until that time comes. Even though the world has decided how it begins and how it ends, it's up to me to decide what happens in between.

"Yeah," I say and close the door. "I'm ready."

* * *

 **[06, MAY, 2015 06:30AM]**

It's not quite chilly but it certainly isn't warm this early in the morning. The sun is slowly peeking over the houses and bathes the city in a soft light that makes it look like something out of a fairy tale. Geneva slowly begins to wake up as we walk through the streets of the city. People exiting their houses, getting in their cars and driving away. For all intents and purposes it looks like just another town in just another country.

They don't know what we know. They don't know that a few kilometers away, a research facility is building a time machine and getting ready to plunge the world into a dystopia.

The town looks so different from the last time I've been here. This time I don't see it as my prison, but as the beautiful city it is. It's so different from Akihabara, where buildings reach for the sky and neon signs fight with each other to get your attention.

Here the houses are built in the way we are told in Japan is typically European. Anime does a good job of portraying it, I realize.

Daru and I make our way to a coffee chain and order breakfast without major hiccups. Our English has improved in the four years after being stuck in Switzerland for the first time. The cashier gives us a funny look but I shrug it off. I'm still not fluid enough to hold a long lasting conversation, but I make do with what I can, despite how broken it may sound. Besides, I'm sure the woman behind the register would appreciate me not calling her a sonuvabitch.

The last team is coming in today and we're supposed to pick them up from the airport. Daru and I both got our drivers licenses as soon as we realized that mobility was going to be crucial in our operation. Converting them to be eligible within Switzerland was surprisingly easy. Japan has a bilateral agreement with over twenty countries, including Switzerland. I suppose that's one thing that I can be grateful for, despite the country also being home to the organization that will plunge the world into darkness.

Weapons have been stored throughout the city. Once again, Daru has managed to come through for us. How he does it, I will never know, but Daru promised me that they're going to be there. When he read out the list of guns we would be having access to, I nearly fainted. I don't like guns, hate the thought of them. I have been shot at way too many times already, but it isn't something that I will ever grow used to.

The guns themselves all come from different locations. While we initially convinced people to join our group in person, we also needed supplies. Daru tracked down a forum that he said would be able to help us. I spent days watching him type up a storm, creating threads and replying like crazy, all to integrate himself within the community that he was sure would end up being profitable for us.

I remember the day he allowed himself a small fist pump, turned around with a smile and gave me the thumbs up. I took him to May Queen Nyan-Nyan to celebrate. He deserved it after all. I even told Faris that she should really pamper him. Daru had smiled the biggest smile I had ever seen.

I don't know whether the weapons will be here when we look for them, but I do know that we are screwed if they're not. If I were to relay this plan to anyone with a logical mind, they would instantly call me crazy. Going to a foreign country with the hope of a cache of weapons being placed there by people we met on the internet. It sounds insane.

I can't help but think of the girl when this thought shoots through my mind. She would sigh, shake her head and explain to me why my plan is stupid. I would of course debate my strategy with her in depth and she would probably end up being right, though I wouldn't concede to that point. She would sigh in exasperation and humor me for a while, but eventually give up and shout at me. She can be so annoying.

I miss her so much.

Daru looks up from his croissant – he absolutely adores the pastry – when he hears me sigh and sends me a knowing look. It's not the first time my thoughts stray away from the job at hand and it's usually a tossup between her and Mayuri.

As wrong as it feels to say, with regards to Mayuri I feel at peace. There are no more questions. She's gone. I miss her like crazy, every day, but as bad as it makes me feel, I have learned to accept this fact. There's nothing I can do for her anymore. No amount of me trying to reshape the future worked. The world line would always end up with the same end result. Mayuri lying on the floor in a puddle of her own blood.

But the girl, the girl I can still save. That's all that's on my mind now and that's why I'm willing to dirty my hands.

Daru polishes off the last piece of his croissant and pats his belly. "Sooooooo good," he says. I crack a slight smile, drink the last bit of my coffee – because that's what adults are supposed to drink and because the coffee shop didn't serve Dr. Pepper – and stand up.

"Are you ready?" I ask.

Daru nods. "Let's go."

We reach our car with relative ease. While more and more normal people go about their daily lives, it never really feels _busy_. Maybe because I'm so used to the hustling and bustling of Akihabara, but I never feel as trapped or as surrounded as I do back in Japan.

I try and blend in as best I can, which is harder to do than I had first imagined, given my lab coat. Some people give me strange looks, and I can tell others think I must be crazy. I thought it would be normal given SERN's proximity to the town, but apparently not.

Daru, surprisingly, doesn't get that many odd stares. He really toned down the otaku vibe since our pact at Comima. While he's still somewhat overweight, and still has his glasses, he at least doesn't make a fool of himself by constantly referencing anime, 2chan, or his love for the 2D variant of the opposite gender.

When I start our car, Daru pulls out a laptop. The first thing he does is read out the spreadsheet we had made. "We're picking up the last group of people and placing them in the hotel that's about five kilometers away from SERN."

"Right," I say as I drive off. Driving on the right side of the road, with the steering wheel at the left took some getting used to, but I got the hang of it now. It's a good thing too, given that I expect our departure from Switzerland to be quite the hectic experience.

"We'll go back to our own hotel and meet everyone tomorrow," Daru says. "We'll pick up the weapons, divide them among everyone, try and get accustomed to what we have. Afterwards we will go on a scouting trip to see how their security is set up. I'm assuming it's going to be similar to how it was a couple of years ago, but you never know. They might expect us to pull something like this."

"Yeah," I say as I turn onto the freeway. Already the signs are pointing me into the direction of the airport, though I've made the trip so many times now that I could probably make the drive while I'm fast asleep.

I hear him type away, and when I glance over, I see green maps of what I think is Switzerland appear on his screen. "What's that?"

"I hacked into some satellites, dude," he says, like it's all in a day's work.

"You did what?!" I say. "How the hell did you manage that?"

"Dude, I hacked into SERN, remember? Do you really think that some crappy firewall is going to stop me? ROFL."

I laugh and shake my head. "You truly are the super haka."

"Hacker, Okarin... hacker. When will you learn?"

"Around the same time as you learning that I'm not called Okarin," I say.

Daru laughs as we roll up to the airport. The remaining three members we're picking up today are the volunteers that we will be primarily be using for scouting purposes. They're young and can fit the student-visiting-SERN-approach that we want to use.

It's easy to spot them when they walk into the arrivals hall. Tarō Urashami leads the group. He is a university student who's studying advanced physics, which made it easier to explain to him the concept of time travel and how SERN will end up implementing it. He's not that tall, I'd say he's around a full head shorter than I am. He's wearing a loose fitting black T-shirt with jeans and a dark blue hoodie is casually flung over his shoulder. Despite having similar hair to me, he's completely different to how I look, with no facial hair whatsoever and eyes that are vibrant with life. It helps that his hair doesn't stick out every which way, like mine tends to do. All in all, he looks well taken care of.

He seems to be a charismatic young man, given that it took him almost no effort to convince two of his fellow students to join the fight against SERN. They spoke to me about how they wanted to make a difference in this world, how they wanted to do the right thing. I still wonder how he got them to join. Even attempting to explain the truth would make most people think I am insane.

We greet them like they're three friends that we haven't seen in forever. Daru and I both take their luggage as we guide them to our car. We speak English, or an approximation of it anyway, to further construe our image as tourists.

If there are any spies of SERN, they may be tricked into thinking that we're actually on vacation, though the odds are slim. Anyone with a working brain can figure out what we're here for. We mostly keep up the charade to try and fool anyone who could mention us in passing. We're way less suspicious as a group of Asian people from an English speaking country than if they heard us talking Japanese, which would be a dead giveaway.

When we're back on the road, Daru explains the plan. I have no intention of putting innocent students in the firing line, so Daru and I agreed to make it clear to them that they can help in a scouting capacity. I want them to have oversight over the entire area, so it's up to them to slip out of the tour we signed them up for, get to the roof of the building where they conduct their research, and communicate with us through the audio equipment that's supposedly coming with the weapons.

The drive to the hotel is fairly straightforward. We drop them off and go back to our own, spending the rest of the day going over the plan multiple times. I've got everything we've discussed stored in my brain. I don't have perfect recollection by any means, but we've been over it so many times that it almost seems like I do.

Still, it never hurts to check everything just one more time.

Most of the plan leaves a lot to be desired. Not because we haven't thought everything through, but because a lot of it is dependent on how SERN reacts. The extraction will be a lot easier if they don't come out guns blazing. If they do... I really don't want to think about that. However, it's something we're prepared for.

That night I have trouble falling asleep. I toss and turn, never finding the right position for my brain to finally shut down. Every time I close my eyes, I see her behind my eyelids. Four years is a long time to be longing for someone. I promised her I would come get her and here we are. I wonder if she'll be grateful, or if she's so entrenched within SERN that she doesn't want to leave. The thought scares me. Free will can be so amazing, but also so tragic.

Despite the issues I have, I notice my brain slowly becoming hazy. My arms start feeling sluggish and I finally drift off to sleep, wondering what our reunion will be like.

* * *

 **[07, MAY, 2015 09:00AM]**

The cars we've rented are as nondescript and varied as possible. A few station wagons, a few four seaters, most of them in silver or black. Blending into traffic shouldn't be a problem. With five of the cars, we head off to the different drop points scattered throughout Geneva.

Renting a car is infinitely cheaper than relying on public transportation and taxis, as opposed to Japan. Daru and I head off to the train station, where we're told that our contact placed two duffel bags in a locker. Inside there should be submachine guns and audio equipment

The train station is smaller than the one in Tokyo, I notice, which makes a lot of sense. Public transportation isn't as big in Switzerland as it is in our country. Though it's busy, with passengers scurrying around like ants in an anthill, it's still relatively peaceful when comparing it to back home.

Those simple thoughts keep me from going crazy with anxiety. If the bags aren't there, we're screwed. We won't be able to launch our first attack against SERN... and worse, I won't be able to save her.

We reach the locker section of the station. It's deserted. Lines of blue lockers standing next to each other fill up the otherwise vacated room. Daru and I start walking down the lines, slowly counting them down until we reach the ones that the weapons are supposedly in. I swallow as I produce the key that had been left for us at the reception of the hotel.

The key fits without any issues. I turn it and hear the lock pop open. I take a deep breath and open the locker.

Inside of it I see a duffel bag, just like we were promised. Daru opens the locker next to mine and produces an identical bag. I gently put the bag in my locker on the ground and open the zip. Inside there are several boxes of ammunition and three weapons, which match what I know about submachine guns, though I wouldn't know what model of guns they are.

I know how to use a weapon however. Put a magazine in the weapon, chamber a round, make sure the weapon isn't on a safety lock and pull the trigger. Easy as pie.

The promised audio equipment is also there, in a different part of the bag, which means that our mysterious benefactor came through for us in a big way. Operation Ragnarok is officially a go.

We zip up the bags and sling them over our shoulders as we hurry out of the train station. Being caught now by the Swiss police would be disastrous.

When we're in the car and are safely on our way back to the hotel, I begin to laugh. Not a small chuckle, but a full blown belly laugh. Our chances of success have skyrocketed. Somehow, everyone is coming through for us. It feels like fate is having a hand in what's going on right now. Like we're being guided and the world is conspiring together with us to deliver success.

I wonder if the world realizes the cruel joke it is inevitably going to play on us.

Daru starts laughing as well. It seems he understands the gravity of the situation and shares in my excitement. We're going to pull it off, I'm sure of it. The year and a half in captivity made me bitter, jaded and spiteful. Four years later and while I still harbor resentment towards SERN, I've begun to be positive again.

I had lost all hope when Mayuri died and I couldn't save her. Then I lost _her_ and it became even worse. Everything I tried seemed to cement my failure. I was losing myself in the process as I watched Mayuri die again and again, all of my attempts eternally etched into my mind, as I could relive them over and over while I was stuck in captivity.

Now at least it seems that we have regained some semblance of control, the control we lost when we decided to fight SERN head on.

We pull into the parking lot of the hotel and exit the car. When we get back to our room, a couple of messages inform us that the other teams were successful as well. Everyone is armed and ready to go. I send everyone a text back, telling them to meet us on the outskirts of the SERN compound in two hours.

We grab the audio equipment and drive down to the designated meeting spot. A few people have already arrived when we get there, so we meet up with them and talk to them about what they've managed to see already.

Sadly they can't tell us much. They say they haven't had the time to check guard routes yet. The last time I was here, there wasn't much in the way of guards though. Most of the resistance came from the Rounders who were mobilized in an extremely rapid manner, mostly due to the fact that we were tricked by SERN into thinking we had an ally.

The rest of the Valkyrians joins the group and soon enough we're complete. Daru and I start dividing tasks. We have a group of 10 people on general overwatch, who will survey the compound and try and notice patterns of movement from guards and scientists alike.

The other ten will be infiltrating the actual compound and try and gain information that way. The group that's led by Tarō Urashami will be posing as students on a field trip. Their job is to try and locate where they could be keeping the girl.

I know I shouldn't go with the ground team, but I can't stay and keep watch from the outside. I need to feel useful. Daru gives me his cap, which is several sizes too big for my own head, but I put it on anyway. I also wear the hoodie that Tarō has brought, which means that I'm virtually unrecognizable at a glance. A close inspection will of course ruin me, but I'm willing to chance it.

As we begin our infiltration, I'm once again reminded of how amazing SERN really is. Not the creating-a-dystopia part, certainly not that, but the countless hours of research and dedication to science that happens here. The compound is filled with buildings that are different in sizes and shapes, all of them contributing to the world of science in different ways.

The group and I join up in the guided tour, which proves to be easier than expected. They don't charge us anything and while we're not allowed free access we do get to see most of the actual buildings. Whether or not we'll manage to find her is another question altogether.

We first head to the Atlas control building, the building that's used to monitor LHC activity. It's one of the main buildings used when it comes to meetings and presentations on the Large Hadron Collider, the tube that almost became our grave.

While the tour guide is talking about the construction costs, a couple of the group split off and start exploring. I've been here before, and I know that there's a staircase outside that leads to the roof.

I creep through the hallway, trying to listen for anyone roaming the hallway. Outside of a floor polisher that's quite far away from me, I don't hear anything. Soon enough I manage to find the door that leads me to the back of the building. There I find the staircase, which I quickly climb. When I reach the roof, I am taken aback by the view once more.

I am standing in the hub of modern science, not a prisoner but a free man. It would almost be breathtaking if it weren't for the fact that I know what they're planning to do... and the fact that they have _her_ captive.

Looking out over all the buildings in front of me gives me a better idea of where exactly I am, but it doesn't tell me anything about where they could be keeping her. I suppose that they could be keeping her in the same building as they kept her in initially, though it would be quite stupid on their part to make it so obvious.

Or maybe they feel so secure that they don't care.

I sigh and decide to go back inside. The only 'lead' I have is basically a gamble that SERN is being too full of themselves to move her to a different location. Dejected I walk down the stairs. Everything was going so well, and it'll still end up coming down to pure luck. I open the door and stop in my tracks. It can't be.

I spot a flash of red hair, as it moves around a corner. Is it her? It's hard to tell, given that the corner that I saw the hair just disappear at is at the other side of the hallway. I run after her, wanting to shout her name, but at the same time not wanting to give myself away. I come up to the corner when I hear a door slam shut. I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and when I finally reach the corner, my insides revolting against the sudden bout of exercise, my worst fear becomes reality.

No access outside of authorized personnel.

I start yanking on the door, but realize it's pointless. The keycard scanner next to the door tells me as much.

Still, if it's her, I have just gained an incredible amount of knowledge. She's apparently capable of going into rooms that require authorization. That means that they're treating her as part of their own. So even if we don't know where she's staying, we know where she'll probably be during the day.

Whether it's luck or fate, I don't know, but today has been an extremely good day. I link up with the group and we finish the guided tour, during which I relay my newfound knowledge to the rest of the team. I even allow myself to get drawn into the amazing experiments and informative exhibits on science that they have.

That flash of hair was unmistakably her. I'm sure of it.

* * *

 **[08, MAY, 2015 10:00AM]**

The plan is simple. We sneak in, snatch her and get the hell out. The team is told that our objective is extremely important to our cause. They believe me without question.

The lie stings a little, but I rationalize that it's for the greater good. After all, this will make me happy, and what's more important than a happy leader?

Everyone has their communication gear and weapons. We're not going to go in guns blazing, but rather poke and prod and see what their response is. We start at the Atlas Control Building, where we've last seen her, and work our way throughout the building from there, to see if she's there. If not, we'll move on to personnel quarters and try there.

We'll be hitting our targets with care and precision. While we don't have military training, we do have a couple of volunteers who are at least combat proficient. They've gone to great lengths to get us up to speed on how our guns work and how to compensate for recoil.

We're expecting armed response and the fact that I am almost sure of the fact that I will be using my gun to take a life soon makes me want to hurl.

Daru takes command of group A, which will be responsible for securing the outside perimeter, while group B, where I'm in charge, will be clearing the buildings. Volunteers under 21 are assigned to overwatch duty.

We drive up to the Atlas building by car, jump out and storm in. The team is aware that we won't shoot until we're being shot at. Everyone with a gun is fair game. Everyone else should be unharmed.

There's barely any security, other than a single guard. When he comes face to face with over ten guns pointed at him, he immediately surrenders and gives us his keycard. I take it from him. "Thanks," I say. "Nothing personal," I add before I hit him with the butt of my gun. He crumples down, knocked out cold. I try to not let my ruthlessness affect me too much.

The moment I fear strikes when we hit the first floor. The locked door I saw resides on the third floor of the building, and we take the stairs to methodically clear the building. Outside I hear the distinct crack of gunfire and my mind flashes back to the claustrophobic terror I felt when I was stuck in the bowels of the LHC, surrounded by darkness and being shot at from dozens of angles.

I tell the group to get a move on when we get charged head on by Rounders. Their guns are already primed and before I know what's happening, I jump to the side. A ripple of gunfire barely misses me and I manage to find cover behind a wall. On the other side of the wall, five Rounder gunmen have also found cover.

I look back at my team and notice that most of them have found safe spots. Three of the team, I can't tell who they are, are holding the gunmen at bay by providing suppressing fire. I peek around the wall, take aim, and fire.

The moment I pull the trigger, I close my eyes. I don't know if I can live with myself if I kill someone.

I feel the gun jumping in my hand and quickly open my eyes. As much as I'd like to retain my innocence, it's unfeasible. I need to know what I'm doing.

I stop shooting for a second, readjust my aim and pull the trigger. My target goes down with a loud cry and I cringe inwardly. My first confirmed hit.

Tracer fire is zipping past me and it's a miracle that no one of us has been hit yet. The Rounders are not only ruthless, but expert marksmen. Luckily for us, they're in a disadvantageous position, with lots of open spaces, while we can hide behind walls and flights of stairs.

We finally manage to take out the remaining Rounders and the team regroups behind me. We move past their bodies, riddled with bullets, and I get hit by a wave of nausea. I try and push it down as best I can as I step over the corpses, reminding myself that I can't die. It's physically impossible to die, because I still have ten more years to live.

I just wish I can believe it myself really.

We reach the third floor and rush the door. I swipe the card through the reader and yank open the door...

which closes immediately after I enter.

I realize I still have the keycard in my hand, which means that I am effectively cut off from the rest of the team. Inside the room it's dark. The soft glow of the monitors in the control room serve to bathe it in an eerie light. I hear footsteps... heels that hit the floor. I know that sound. I've heard those heels before.

Out of the shadow steps Akiko Hiiragi, the woman responsible for getting us into this mess in the first place. She's not alone. In her right hand she holds a pistol, but her other arm is dragging along someone who I haven't seen in four years. The lights flicker on, which gives me a good read on the situation. It's as I thought.

"Let her go," I growl, as I aim my weapon to line up with Akiko's head.

"Okabe!" the girl says, as she struggles to break free. "What are you doing here?"

"You told me four years ago," I say, "that there's nothing but pure white between then and what's going to happen in the future." I see by her reaction that she remembers all too well. "I'm simply filling in the blanks."

I hear her gasp as she realizes that I've come to get her, to take her home. Once again I'm taking a stand against causality, or as much as it allows me to anyway.

"There are over twenty people outside who will burst in here at any second to take you down, Akiko. To take SERN down. We're with far more people than you can ever imagine."

Akiko says nothing in reply. I see her shoulders shaking and I wonder if she's scared of my threats. I decide to go for broke.

"Give her up and you can walk away from this with your life. It doesn't have to end like this. Just give me what I'm here for and leave. Run as far away from this organization as you can."

Akiko bursts out laughing, which confuses the hell out of me. What could she think is so funny at this point in time. "You silly boy," she says. "You silly, dumb, idiotic, stupid boy. Who do you think gave you access to all those guns, huh? Who do you think supplied you with them, huh?" I see her pistol moving towards her prisoner's head.

No... not again. This can't be happening again. She beat us again. SERN knew all along.

"Do you honestly think we care?" she asks. She sounds smug. "Do you really think we didn't know what you were planning? I admit, your stunt at Comima was good, but that's the difference between two students at a university against a multibillion dollar corporation. You can't escape from us."

The girl that I've staked my life on getting back keeps struggling against the chokehold, but to no avail. The hold seems to be too strong. The gun is centimeters away from her temple and I see Akiko's finger moving to the trigger.

"No!" I scream. Images of Mayuri come flooding into my mind at once and it feels like my skull is about to split open. This can't be happening to me, not again. It doesn't matter whether fate or the will of Steins;Gate exists, nobody survives a direct shot to the head like that. I can't watch her die.

"Let's put our little theory to the test, once more," Akiko says. "Let's see if you're truly tied to this world by fate." It feels like time slows down to a crawl as she tightens her finger and I see the trigger being pulled.

The girl closes her eyes and she mouths to me. "I lo-"

"Stop it!" I shout as Akiko fully pulls the trigger.

I hear gunfire, but it's muffled. The bang I couldn't stand to hear didn't come. Instead, the weapon emits a loud click. My legs feel like they're going to give any time now as the tension releases immediately. She's not dead. I feel like crying, but I don't have time for tears.

"I'll be damned," I hear Akiko say. She tosses the pistol away, and it falls harmlessly to the ground, where it skids over the polished floor. "A gun that jams at the critical moment. That really does prove it, don't you think Mister Okabe?"

"Whu?" I ask. My eyes haven't left the girl's eyes during that entire ordeal. I barely notice the fact that the gunfire outside seemingly has stopped. Behind me the door is kicked open and Daru rushes in. The rest of the Valkyrians join him as they stand behind me, guns trained on Akiko.

"That we can't fight against causality," she says and lets go of the girl, who falls to her knees. She turns around and laughs. "I can't kill her, so I guess there's nothing I can do about it anymore. You're free to take her with you. We'll keep in touch via e-mail. Enjoy Japan, you two."

"Wait," I shout. She doesn't listen, and keeps walking away. "Aren't you scared we're going to kill you?"

"If it's my time, it's my time," she says and then turns a corner. Slowly the sound of her heels hitting the floor fades, until I can't hear it at all. Only then do I see her in front of me again. She's sitting down and hugging her knees. Her shoulders and back are convulsing heavily. My heart breaks at the sight of her.

I feel Daru's hand on my shoulder. "Go do what you have to do, dude."

I nod and start walking towards her. When I reach her, I sit down next to her and pull her against me. She clutches my shirt and puts her face against my chest, as I stroke the silken hair I had longed to touch for so long. Neither of us says a word.

* * *

 **[08, MAY, 2015 13:00PM]**

Daru drives us to the airport. The Rounders gave up fighting, possibly because of an order from Akiko. Whether or not that's true, I don't know.

I don't care.

We've received minimal casualties. Only one confirmed deceased out of twenty isn't bad when you look at it from a purely statistical point of view.

I feel like throwing up.

The man who died was a forty year old Japanese man named Akashatsu Hitomigokū. I think he used to be a security guard who got fired from his job. He was one of the men teaching us about the weapons we would be using. Daru knows more about him than I do. From what I've heard, the man didn't have any close relatives, which means that the pain of loss will stay within our group. That fact does nothing to soothe me. A life ended, just like that. Thrown away. Just like Mayuri.

I fucking hate SERN.

The car drives along the highway with decently fast speed. Traffic is light, with most people probably stuck at work around this time of day. The entire group of Valkyrians is out on the first flight to Japan, except for the people who come from different countries. Daru once again pulled through and sorted everything out, allowing me to focus on the only thing I gave a damn about.

Although I didn't want to cause her any more harm, the fact remained that we were stuck in enemy territory. I gently told her we had to hurry and get out of dodge and she agreed. Though there was some Rounder resistance left, they didn't fire at us. We didn't fire at them. It was like an unspoken cease-fire had been agreed on. Both sides were left licking their wounds.

We arrive at the airport and she seems to have regained some of her wits. Passport control goes by without a hitch and before we know it, we're waiting at the gate. The LCD monitor above it promises us that its destination will be Tokyo. Home.

We sit in the black lounge chairs that are so typical at airports. She is to the right of me with her legs pulled up, hugging them once more. I have my arm slung around her shoulders, rubbing her arm. Letting her know that I'm here, that I kept my promise.

Seeing her alive and safe is too much for me. The sacrifices we've had to make suddenly hit me like a freight train and before I can stop myself, I let out a sob. She looks at me with a concerned look, and I decide to give up on being a mad scientist and just being myself.

The stress of the last few days and the guilt of taking lives washes over me and before I know it I'm crying. I feel myself convulse as the sobs continue to rack my body.

My hand drops from her arm and I put my head in my hands. My tears warm my palms and I feel like curling up into a ball.

"I'm s-s-sorry," I say, my speech interspersed with hiccups, "I'm so sorry."

"For what," a small voice asks. Her speech seems so different after four years apart. No longer does she seem to be the headstrong girl that I grew to love. Her lively spirit seems to have faded, her confidence in herself gone. The price she had to pay by accepting her fate.

"F-for letting you go, for coming b-back here to get you, for killing people... I ch-changed, so m-much," I say. "All I wanted was to s-s-save you, to bring you back home, to change fate... but by trying to do so I changed myself. I became one of them... one of the ro-rounders."

I manage to control my breathing again, and the jagged cries have stopped. Tears continue to streak down my face, but at least it's not as messy anymore.

She stays silent, slowly shaking her head though whether it's disbelief or sympathy I can't tell, and I realize that I have to be completely honest with her. However, being face to face with her makes it a lot harder to say than I thought it would be. It was so easy in my dreams.

"I guess I did it... because I love you..." I say, whispering the last part. It feels as if time slows down. Her breathing becomes a bit more ragged and I wonder if she's crying again, which confuses me. I expected a lot of reactions, but crying wasn't one I accounted for.

"Wh- what?" she says.

I decide to toughen up and tell her. "I... love you. I love you... I'm in love with you." I say, every time I repeat it to her and myself I become more confident. In myself, in her, in us. She doesn't seem to be crying, so I figure I'm on the right path.

Her cheeks flush and the color returns to her face a bit more. She starts fidgeting with her jacket and I wonder what's going through her head. It looks like her mind is racing a mile a minute, analyzing what I've said, maybe even questioning whether I mean it. I wait, letting her come to her own conclusion. We have lots of time left before our plane leaves. Lots of time left in our lives.

Though time is certainly running out for both of us, I feel like right now I have all the time in the world. The girl next to me had been right all along. We're bound to follow a path with a set start and finish, but how we get from point A to point B is up to us. She gave me the strength to sway from the path I was following and now it's my turn to help her walk another path too.

"You believed in me," I say, "and now I ask you to believe in me once more. I love you. I will do anything I can in the time that I have left to keep you safe. For these next few years, the only thing I truly, deeply want, is to have you by my side. As my friend, as my assistant, as my partner."

"What about SERN?" she asks me.

"You will still work for them. We can't change that. You will do your best to create a time machine for them and Daru and I will do our best to stop SERN from destroying the world."

"So we would be enemies." Her mind so easily jumps to conclusions. I can't help but quietly chuckle.

"In a way, yes. Though we wouldn't be enemies by choice and I would certainly never see you as an enemy. We're enemies, only through causality. I see it as puppets that are rebelling against their master. The world has a plan for us and we're going to follow through on that plan, but we're going to do it on our own terms."

"Okay," she says.

"Okay?" I ask, and when I look at her, she's staring me in the eyes. She has stopped fidgeting and her body is tensed. She seemingly regains her confidence in a mere few seconds, from broken girl to confident scientist. Her transformation is so fast and sudden that I fail to notice she hasn't responded to my question.

She stops hugging her knees and lowers her feet to the airport carpet. She stands up, grabbing my hand in the process. She pulls me up and when I reach my full height, she kisses me.

Her lips feel so soft and the warmth that I had felt in my dreams floods through me as she presses against me. I'm stunned and my arms hang by my side. I'm unsure of how to respond, but I realize that I need to do something.

She slowly removes her lips from mine and backs away a single step. For the first time in forever she's smiling, and I'm sure that I must look like an idiot, grinning in the middle of an airport, for all the world to see. "Not yet," I say and pull her back. She crashes into me and she fits so perfectly against me that I'm surprised we're not part of the same person. A strand of hair falls in front of her eyes as she looks up at me, and I tenderly stroke it away, before leaning down and kissing her a second time.

Time seemingly grinds to a halt as I commit every second to memory. The way she feels, the way she smells, the way she looks, the fluttering of her eyes as they close and she surrenders. I feel her arms wrap around my neck and I in turn embrace her as tight as I possibly can, never wanting to let go.

It feels like minutes stretching into hours, though the rational part of me understands that it's only been thirty seconds at best. The theory of relativity. Time moves fast or slow depending on our perception of it. I want to complain to Einstein as I realize that ten years could never be enough with her, though it'll have to do. Something is better than nothing.

"Okabe," she says as she pulls back and puts the side of her head against my chest. Her arms close around my back and her grip feels just as strong as mine was on hers. My heart is beating rapidly and I'm sure she can feel it. "These past few years, all I've heard was people calling me Miss Makise, over and over and over again. Please... say my name... just this once..."

Tears well up in my eyes as I feel her arms around me, her hair tickling my cheek, her slim body pressed tight against me. Signs that she's there, she's alive and she's coming back. I stroke her cheek with my thumb, once again wiping away a lone tear that's falling down her beautiful face. I take a deep breath and smile.

"Kurisu."

 **The End**

* * *

 **A/N:** I wrote this short story as a continuation of The Distant Valhalla, which takes place one and a half years after Mayuri is shot and killed. For anyone who hasn't read it, I strongly suggest you do so. It's a great story that is very bleak, but also has a very small dash of hope sprinkled throughout. I took the hope within that story and I ran with it.

The events in this story I feel would fit within the rules of time travel as depicted within Steins;Gate and should line up with canon in terms of what we know of the alpha attractor field – which is not that much, especially not in this particular divergence percentage, other than the fact that Okabe will die in 2025 and SERN will complete a time machine in 2034 – however, there's always the chance that I made a mistake somewhere (disregard the fact that 2chan in the world of Steins;Gate doesn't exist, the at-icon isn't allowed by FF). If that's the case, I'm sorry.

I also tried to adopt the same style used in the story, with similar writing of dates and perspective. I hope I succeeded in this task. I had a lot of fun writing this story and I hope you enjoyed reading it. If you didn't, thank you for taking the time to read it anyway.


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